


Best By Date on Label

by EvilMuffins



Category: Dangan Ronpa, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Cake, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-01 22:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14530440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: “It tastes like…vanilla?” Saihara ventured slowly, and Ouma could hear the stickiness in his voice. A kinder soul would have offered him water.---Ouma has always had difficulty tasting food, but Saihara offers a suggestion.





	Best By Date on Label

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EternalFluffy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalFluffy/gifts).



> Happy (early) birthday to my dearest Shumai!  
> Honestly, you deserve a 100k epic, but this will have to do for now! I love you!!
> 
> This story is largely based off a [Tumblr post](https://tricky-leader.tumblr.com/post/172506793700/kokichi-ouma-character-mini-analysis-food-items) suggesting that Ouma can't taste food!

The piano upstairs hadn’t let out a single note in days, and of course the air in the kitchen was completely devoid of tempting smells. It hadn’t been more than a few days since the second execution had been carried out, but of course the differences were felt right away among the remaining students.

There would still be aromas wafting out of the kitchen at meal times, or but more often than not, they were the kind that would typically set off smoke alarms in a different type of school, one that actually had the safety of the students in mind.

At the moment, the sound of coughing choked the dining hall nearly as thickly as the evidence of a misadventure on the stove did.

“Is…is everyone okay in here?” Although Ouma couldn’t see into the dining hall from his place in the kitchen, the hesitant voice sputtering out between coughs clearly belonged to his favorite detective, quavering as if he expected the only one present in the kitchen to be yet another corpse.

“Ah, Saihara-chan!” Ouma piped up from the kitchen, seemingly unaffected by the acrid air quality, save for the tears forming in his eyes, only partly from the smoke. “You’re just in the nick of time! It’s Kii-boy! He- he just exploded, right before my eyes! I think he was so upset over not being able to eat human food that he just-“

“Ouma-kun,” from the tone in his voice alone, Ouma could already imagine the crease forming between Saihara’s brows before he made it anywhere near the kitchen. Vaguely, Ouma wondered if the lines would become permanent by the time they were able to escape the school. That was one way to leave a mark, if nothing else. “I just saw Kiibo-kun out in the hall before coming in here.”

The racket caused by the kitchen vent fan drown out Saihara’s next round of coughs as he flipped the switch, starting it up.

Ouma let his mouth drop open, feigned surprise springing from it as the last of his crocodile tears dried. “Whaaaat? You mean, Iruma-chan finally managed to make a second one for herself?”

Ignoring him, Saihara’s attention fell instead toward the stove, tilting his head slightly in that way he always did when a conundrum presented itself, considering the contents of the pan, so blackened that they could easily have been used to fuel an old-fashioned steam train. “What… exactly were you trying to accomplish here?”

“ _’_ _Accomplish’?”_ Ouma repeated, mimicking Saihara’s head motion, exaggerating it so that the ends of his hair flopped onto his shoulder. “Not ‘cook’?”

He supposed that it wasn’t a given that he had been attempting to cook food. For all Saihara knew, he had been purposely trying to burn the place down.

Good.

“Making a snack for my beloved Saihara-chan, of course! _Duh_! Can’t you see all the _love_ I put into this?” Ouma flourished his hand over the spoiled food, as if a magician promising in a single gesture that the charred lumps might turn back into something edible, if they ever had been to begin with.

“I, uh,” Saihara sniffed experimentally at the air, as if his nose might disagree with his eyes, which it did not. “All I really see is a mess, to be honest. Ouma-kun… could it be that you don’t know how to cook for yourself, now that Toujou-san is… isn’t with us anymore?”

Quickly calling back the tears that had only just dried, Ouma began to wail, “It’s true! I’m lost without my mommy!”To which he added in a juicy sniffle, just to be on the safe-side.

At least Saihara hadn’t believed that the meal had been meant for him. Ouma might have actually felt bad in that in case…or not. It was hard to say, seeing as he had yet to really do anything for the object of his affection that could truly be considered ‘a kind gesture’, if lies didn’t count, of course. Somehow, he didn’t think that they did, or least not to anyone outside of himself, or his friends back home in DICE.

With a sigh, Saihara ran a hand through his hair, failing as always to smooth the funny little flyaway that always seemed to have a mind of its own. At least hadn’t made to re-adjust his long-abandoned hat this time, as charming as that may have been, never failing to earn a genuine snicker from Ouma.

“Would you like me to try and cook something for you?”

Ouma had never had all that much of an interest in food while growing up. Sitting still on the kitchen stool, using his mouth to quietly chew rather than talk, the irritating repetition of one bite, then two, stab, lift, insert, mash, mash, swallow… It was boring. The earnest look in Saihara’s eyes, however, was definitely not, causing a now familiar warmth to bubble up deep within Ouma’s chest.

During the brief time that Kaede had been with them, it was impossible not to notice her wish to help others, even if it came at her friends’ eventual detriment. At the same time, Toujou’s need to serve almost certainly came from a need for validation, rather than pure kindness, or so Ouma had gathered, as nice as it had been to lie to himself otherwise while being waited on hand-and-foot during group breakfasts.

Saihara, on the other hand, was gifted with a strong desire to problem-solve, as any detective worth a crap should. Or at least, that was what Ouma had first jotted down in one of his multitude of notebooks late one night, wincing now and then whenever the pen would press too hard into his injured finger. ‘ _Trustworthy??’_ He had scrawled the single word beside the photo of Saihara taped up onto his whiteboard before crawling into bed that night. Could the entire Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes thing have really been born from genuine kindness? The idea ran a handful of warm-up laps in Ouma’s brain as he lay in bed, considering the view of the popcorn ceiling from between his fingers, flexing them until the bandage dotted red, barely visible in the dark of the room. Eventually, the marathon of thoughts made their way down into his chest where they continued to wear grooves for the rest of the night.

“You’d really do that for me?” The tears from moments ago made it easy for Ouma to angle his head in a way that he knew would cause his eyes to sparkle (or, at least they did whenever he practiced in the mirror back home), as he leaned in close. “Today must be my lucky day! …Wow, it’s almost as if I’m cursed to have really incredible luck, but only after something shitty happens first! Wouldn’t that be a wild plot twist?”

“I don’t think that luck really works that way,” Saihara replied pensively, searching for a pot-holder before lifting the pan off the stove, “I mean, if luck dictated our actions so much… then what about free will? I guess I just don’t want to think that there’s some kind of grand force out there pulling our strings like that.”

“But what if I said that I’m so lucky to have met you, Saihara-chan?” Ouma asked, voice hushing into a near-whisper, as if the ruined food might over-hear and tattle to their classmates.

Although Saihara opened his mouth to respond, all that managed to escape was a croak of surprise as Ouma darted out a hand, snatching a molten hunk of once-food from the still-scalding pan before Saihara could reach the trash. Just as quickly, the massive glob had disappeared into the void of Ouma’s mouth.

“Mmm! Delicious!” he chirped around the mouth-full, eyes fluttering shut as his jaw moved in a deliberate pace, savoring as he munched.

“That…” Saihara hesitated, pan hovering over the trash as his eyes traveled uncertainly between Ouma and the ‘food’, lips tugging into a grimace as if he had been the one tasting it instead. “That can’t be any good…”

“You’re right!” Ouma swallowed, gulping down the entire mouthful with a grin. “That was a lie! But hey, at least I could kinda taste it, so it was definitely worth burning my entire mouth for!” He said, poking the tip of his tongue out for an inspection that Saihara failed to take him up on.

“Ouma-kun…” As Saihara finally tipped the remainder of the pan into the garbage, Ouma watched as he began to connect the dots. “Could it be that… maybe you have trouble tasting food?”

“Geez, Shumai, for a detective, it sure takes you a while sometimes,” Ouma scolded, clicking his tongue. He would have thought that his badgering Toujou for mountains of extra salt during each meal, or heaping on praise and thanks whenever Saihara would bring him one of the more outlandish food prizes from the Monomono Machine might have clued him in. Of course, noticing something as personal as that would have required Saihara looking at him as anything other than just a mystery to be unraveled, just another layer to be peeled aside before solving the case behind their imprisonment in the school. Saihara was kind, of course, but no more so to Ouma than anyone else, and with each passing trial his patience wore thinner.

Of course Saihara was kind, but he divvied out that kindness, like the dealer in a game of cards, making certain that everyone gathered round was given their fair due, with no hand left dealt to himself.

If wasn’t as if Ouma couldn’t notice things himself, of course- the way Saihara’s lashes fluttered when he was deep in thought; how his eyes lit up when he uncovered a clue; or how he chewed on his lip whenever he worried, just as he was doing right now. His bottom lip would always be swollen, puffy, after he finally relinquished it, and this time was no exception. At the same time, Ouma’s own mouth had somehow grown uncomfortably dry. Thoughts threatened a rise to the surface, like the last remains of the smoke kissing the tile ceiling, and made to disperse just as quickly.

Again, Saihara asked, “Is there anything I can make for you? Maybe there’s something you can enjoy the texture of at least?”

“Whatever you want!” Ouma announced with a shrug, too large for his thin shoulders. “Oh, as long as it doesn’t involve sugar…or eggs, or wheat, or dairy, or anything off-white or navy-blue. I’m deathly allergic, you see! You’d kill me dead and then you’d cry like a baby, mourning the loss of your arch-rival! Why, you’d have no purpose in life after that, seeing as your entire career has been built on capturing me! …That’s a lie, though. Since I can’t taste it anyway, you really can go ahead and just make whatever.”

Nodding slowly, Saihara pulled open a cabinet, scanning the contents inside. “Did you already have something for lunch?”

“Who knows?” Ouma replied wistfully. “Some days, my thoughts are so filled with wild fantasies of my beloved Shumai, that I even forget to eat…”

“I’m better at making dessert anyway,” Saihara answered his own question, before adding, “Not that I’m really all that great at baking either, but at least it might be better than going hungry.”

Ouma watched, alternating between pacing the room and bouncing up and down on his toes, peeping over Saihara’s shoulder as he took down a mug, stirring together flour, butter, milk, and sugar.

“I’m impressed! Where did you learn to whip up something like that?” Ouma gave out an appreciative whistle as Saihara made use of the microwave, often neglected in favor of the stovetop back when Toujou had been in charge of meals.

“Well, there’s this series of mystery novels,” Saihara replied sheepishly, keeping his eyes on the digital display as it counted down to probably what would be the only time a count-down would ever end well in that school. “The protagonist is a baker who also moonlights as an amateur detective, so the author always includes a recipe at the back of the book…”

“What, you actually read those?” Ouma accused, wrinkling his nose. “I totally thought you were the type of guy who would only read, like, Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie something! You have the same taste in books as my grandma.”

“They help me get to sleep at night,” Saihara defended apologetically, as if he were confessing to popping sleeping pills rather than having frumpy taste in books.

“Aw, Saihara-chan, you should have told me sooner that you were having trouble sleeping alllll alone in that room of your’s!” Ouma sidled up next to Saihara as he spoke, feeling him tense up as he leaned into his side. “We’ll just have to bear our time apart for now, and watch as it makes our love grow all that much stronger when we finally make our escape together, spending our nights in each other’s arms, on the run from the law-”

Saihara started as the microwave beeped urgently, somehow even louder than it would have sounded during a 3am midnight snack. “Ouma-kun-“

“Just kidding!” As Ouma skipped backward, the warm scent of vanilla wafted out of the microwave, surrounding him the moment Saihara popped the door.

Careful to lift the mug by the handle so that his fingers wouldn’t meet the same fate as Ouma’s tongue had earlier, Saihara moved the mug to the counter, a soft smile playing across his lips as he admired his handiwork, golden-brown cake poking up just over the top, as if curious to sneak a look at how it was about meet its final end.

Billowy steam curled up from the cup in waves and wisps, Saihara leaning over it to purse his lips, blowing gently across in little puffs.

Finally, Ouma had to ask, “Uh, Saihara-chan, I mean not that it doesn’t look yummy and all, but why go to all this trouble if I can’t taste it anyway?”

As if he had spent too long with his face near the piping mug, Saihara’s face went pink as he straightened up, eyes glancing toward Ouma, before settling back onto the waiting cake. “I, uh, thought that maybe I could describe it to you as you ate. ...Now that I’m saying it out loud though, it sounds like a really dumb idea…. I could make you something else? Is there anything you like the texture of at least, or-?”

With a clatter, the silverware drawer tugged open, Ouma pulling out two forks, one of which he thrust into Saihara’s sweaty palm. “It’s worth a try!”

Plunging his own fork into the cake, Ouma scooped out an impressive portion, jamming it into his mouth. When Saihara failed to mirror the motion, seemingly stunned at Ouma’s enthusiasm in taking him up on the suggestion, Ouma nodded pointedly in the mug’s direction.

“Oh, er, sorry about that,” Saihara let out a week laugh. “I guess I’m just surprised that I finally found a way to get you to stop lying for a little bit…” Dipping his own fork in, careful to hold a hand underneath in order to avoid stray crumbs, he took a thoughtful bite.

At the same time, Ouma felt his stomach sink, guilt rushing in to fill the space where cake should have been. Of course Saihara wouldn’t like it when he lied, no one would… but what other choice did he have? Even though it definitely wasn’t a lie that he had never really felt the way that he did about Saihara before now, he also knew that he wasn’t able to give up the very core of who he was as a person in a desperate grasp at acceptance, from him or anyone else.

Not many months after the founding of DICE, one of Ouma’s subordinates had confessed to him out of the blue, pigtails bobbing as she bowed, holding out a small envelope in her hands. He had of course thought that she had been joking at first, but after opening the earnest note, the lack of any sort prank became clear. He had rushed immediately down to his private lair in order to mull things over. Playing along could be a fun little game he supposed, and it probably would have made her happy for at least a little while, even if he knew that he had less than zero interest in girls in that way. Most likely, however, it would have ended up boring sooner rather than later, forcing himself to go along with something his heart wasn’t really into. In the end, although he enjoyed the times they pulled pranks together, or hung out around the hideout, at the end of the day, they were just friends.

Would he be forcing Saihara into something similar, if he ever decided to let his feelings be completely, honestly known?

Was _that_ ‘love’? That wave of guilt that comes around when you start to worry about someone else’s happiness more than your own?

This spiral of thoughts was interrupted however, as Saihara continued, setting his fork down on the counter with a clink, before rubbing at the bridge of his nose, the light flush in his cheeks from just moments before regaining in color as he spoke. “Er, not that I want to change you or anything, Ouma-kun, it’s just that…there’s so much going on here, all around us, just constantly. Sometimes, it’s just nice to have a quiet moment together, I guess is what I’m trying to say.”

Obviously, deciding it was time to shut up himself as well, Saihara took another bite, chewing slowly so as to concentrate on the flavor this time, dark lashes falling shut as he tried to focus.

Ouma swallowed down his share, hoping that Saihara couldn’t hear the resulting gulp as loudly as he could.

“It tastes like…vanilla?” Saihara ventured slowly, and Ouma could hear the stickiness in his voice. A kinder soul would have offered him water.

“Bzzt! I have no idea what that tastes like, Saihara-chan! Try again,” Ouma demanded, despite the fact that he was able to smell the scent of vanilla just fine, allowing him to have some inkling.

“Oh, er…” Saihara frowned in thought. “It’s warm? And sort of comforting, I guess. It tastes cozy, like, like wearing warm sweater on Christmas.”

“Oh my!” Ouma giggled. “How poetic my beloved Shumai is!”

Saihara’s eyes flew open, the pink dusted across his cheeks only deepening. “Cut that out, or I won’t help you anymore,” he scolded, digging his fork back into the cup.

Ouma’s fork suddenly fell to the floor with a clatter. “Whoopsie! Gee whiz, would you look at that? Mean ol’ Saihara-chan’s shouting startled me so much that I dropped my fork!” He pouted, toeing at the fallen utensil rather than bending to place it into the sink (where he wouldn’t have washed it anyway).

Launching forward, Ouma grabbed onto Saihara’s wrist to steady it, before cramming his mouth down onto the forkful. “Wow! Itsh like I can really tashte it now!” He mumbled around the food.

“I- I’m glad,” Saihara replied, more to the now-empty fork than anyone else, eyeing it as if it had suddenly transformed into a squid right in his hand. Shooting a glance toward the silverware drawer, Saihara then steeled himself, dipping back into the cake with the same tines that had only just passed by Ouma’s lips, before continuing his description,“…And it’s sweet too, like the happy feeling you get inside when you’re at a carnival, and everything’s colorful and cheery and people are smiling and laughing… But, uh, maybe I shouldn’t be saying things like that about my own cooking-”

Before Saihara could open his eyes again, Ouma leaned in for a second time, titling his head upward to peck him on the lips, sticky with sugar.

Ouma’s feet too, felt stuck to the floor.

_Run! Run! He hates you now, but isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t it!?_

“I, uh,” Ouma managed to pull one foot out of the molasses of his mortification, taking a step backward. “You made it sound so good, I even thought that I could taste your words! Well, that was fun and all, but I’ll be off to bed now. I’ve got a long day of evil machinations ahead of me tomorrow, so-“

“It’s 3pm,” Saihara breathed through the fingertips touching wonderingly at his lips.

“Geez, you’ve never heard of a nap?” A second step back, yet his legs still refused to sprint from the room as much as he silently pleaded with them. “You really are hopeless.”

“I hope you enjoy your nap, Ouma-kun” Saihara said softly, hand dropping to his side as dark eyes locked with Ouma’s, mouth set in something like determination, as if he had come to decision over something unvoiced, “but if you… if you wanted to come back tomorrow, around the same time, I’ll make you something else. I… wouldn’t mind doing this again.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.” A third step back, then another, finally reaching the door. “I’m in!”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Microwave mugcake recipe](https://www.stylemepretty.com/living/2015/04/22/simple-yellow-mug-cake)
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://evil-muffins.tumblr.com)


End file.
